Adventures in life, pregnancy, friendships, family & a little photography

Main menu

Post navigation

This is FOUR

In January, Jacob turned FOUR! In my opinion, this was his best birthday yet.

We started off the festivities by decorating his door with streamers and balloons the night before his birthday. However…sometime in the middle of the night one of the balloons popped and woke him up, so he came in our room. He woke me up saying, “Why are there decorations on my door?” Ooops! I explained to him that they were for his birthday and got him back to sleep. Regardless, he was still excited to see the decorations, especially since they were his favorite color, GREEN!

That day Jacob had preschool. So we went to school with a big bag of Rice Krispy treats, Jacob’s current favorite treat. They celebrated after their snack time with the Rice Krispy treats and sang Happy Birthday while Jacob got to wear a birthday crown. Later in the afternoon daddy came home with a special delivery from Nonie, who we also call the “balloon grandma!”

Dylan was still napping at the time, and when he woke up and saw the Giant Batman and Spiderman balloons, he was not too sure about them and would not let me put him down. So we gave Jacob his presents and he started opening them.

It didn’t take too long for Dylan to decide they were not so scary anymore. Or maybe he was overcoming the shock of seeing his favorite superhero in our living room.

Together they both tackled the rest of the presents.

That evening two of our neighborhood families came over for pizza and cake to celebrate with us. Jacob loves being with these friends and we love the parents too, so it is win win for all of us!

My four year old!

The reason we didn’t do a big birthday party this year, was because a couple days later we took Jacob to the Happiest Place on Earth…Disneyland!

It truly was a fun, magical day! It had been many, many years since Justin or I had been there, so we felt like giddy kids ourselves.

We had park hopper passes so we could go back and forth between Disneyland and California Adventures. In Disneyland, we went to ToonTown where we saw Mickey, Goofy and Pluto, we walked around FantastyLand and rode on the flying Dumbo. The weather was cloudy and cool, with a few sprinkles here and there. Which was great because it kept the big crowds away. On our way to Pirates of the Caribbean, it started pouring and we stopped to find shelter for a few minutes and ended up buying some ponchos.

On Pirates of the Caribbean we scored the front row seats on the boat, which Jacob thought was fun when we “went down really fast under the waterfall!” Because of Jacob’s love of StarWars we spent a lot of time in TomorrowLand. We rode the rocket ships, Buzz Lightyear’s ride and even Star Tours. Jacob was scared and had a death grip on both of us during Star Tours, but afterwards he wouldn’t stop talking about it, I think this kid likes to be scared!

His reward for being so brave was a lightsaber of his choice (and also the talking Buzz Lightyear because he really wanted it and hey, it was his birthday).

And it wouldn’t be a complete trip to TomorrowLand without a visit with the one and only, Darth Vader!

Then we went to California Adventures where we spent most of our time in the CARS portion of the park. Which by the way, I thought they did a fantastic job with! The rides were fun for both the adults and kids, and the re-creation from the movie was perfect! We walked down the street just when Tow Mater was leaving and Jacob got to wave at him as he drove by. A minute later, Lightning McQueen showed up. So we took a few minutes to say Hi to him.

Then we checked out the rest of the park and rode more rides, among Jacob’s favorite was the other Buzz Lightyear one “where you use the blasters to shoot the bad guys!”

And to end the long day we walked along the boardwalk and took a ride on the giant Mickey Mouse Ferris Wheel which gave us a birds eye view of both parks lit up at night. It was a pretty magical time for all of us and we can’t wait to go back!

The following week we had his 4 year old check up. They tested his eyesight, hearing and overall general health. He passed all his tests and is a healthy boy. He now weighs 34 lbs and is 3 ft 4.5 in tall. Jacob is our smart, silly, cautious, inquisitive boy. He has mastered the fine art of arguing with us, or completely tuning us out altogether and tests my patience every single day. But behind his strong willed personality, there are hugs and kisses and requests to play hide and go seek and chase with him and he often stops what he is doing and looks at me with a smile and says “HI mommy!” and that makes all the frustrating times melt away. He still asks a million questions a day, and if I ask him if he needs help with something he says “No, I can use my super Gecko muscles!” (you will only understand what that means if you’ve seen the cartoon PJ Masks) and proceeds to flex his muscles and ask you to feel how strong he is.

I saw this fun little questionnaire online and decided to ask Jacob the questions. Hoping I can remember to do something like this every year around his birthday. It is a fun way to engage them in conversation and see how the answers may change as they grow.

What is your favorite color? Green

What is your favorite number? 100

Who are you best friends? Micah, Cameron, Melia, Mackenna, Ryan and Hudson

What is your favorite song? Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (doesn’t matter what time of year it is, he always wants this song)

What is your favorite food? Pancakes and Nutella

What do you want to be when you grow up? A Firefighter (which is funny since he has this crazy obsession with smoke alarms…)

What is your favorite cartoon? Miles from Tomorrowland and Blaze and the Monster Machines

What is your favorite toy? Mac truck, Tow Mater and Lightning McQueen

What is your favorite thing to do with Daddy? Working hard with him outside

What is your favorite thing to do with Mommy? Hugs and kisses

And here is Jake’s 4 year old picture with his giraffe, elephant and a big boy haircut!